Category / Weekly note

The past decade has witnessed a sudden uptick in secessionist movements in Europe. The uptick started on the western side of the continent with the 2009 Belgian elections, where the New Flemish Alliance emerged as the largest party in the country; further to the east, we might point to the Russian invasion and partition of Georgia. Flemings, Abkhazians, and South Ossetians rarely fall in the same category for analysis. Nevertheless, there is something they have in common that warrants exploration. Moreover, that something is shared by the Scots, the Catalans, and the Russian-speakers in Crimea and the Donbass region.

The British government faced another crisis in the House of Commons this week over Brexit, having found a way to stave off the crisis it faced the week before. Both the country and its political parties appear deeply divided over whether the remain in the European Union or to leave. As we know from the June 2016 referendum, the ‘leave’ voters have a narrow majority. The ‘remain’ voters lost. And while the facts on the ground appear to point inexorably toward a British exit, the choice is still far from settled. The reason for this indecisiveness is fundamental. As the British have learned over the two years, Brexit is about more than just their relations with Europe. It is about who makes decisions in a liberal democracy.

As the Trump Administration prepares for the G7 meeting in Canada, the bulk of commentary in the press is focusing on how isolated the United States has become. The aluminium and steel tariffs, the renegotiation of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the withdrawal from the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) with respect to Iran, and the repudiation of the Paris accords all combine to create tension between the Trump Administration and its G7 partners. At the same time, the Trump Administration seems more interested in courting China, Russia, and North Korea than its traditional allies. Hence the question is not just what the Trump Administration hopes to achieve but also why it is bothering to attend at all. The answer is revealing both for what it says about the Trump Administration’s approach to global governance and what it reveals about the enduring legacies of U.S. leadership during the post-Second World War era.

Steve Bannon came to Italy and was greeted with a full-page interview this Sunday (3 June) in the center-left daily newspaper, La Repubblica. The journalist, Antonello Guerrera, seemed determined to find Bannon’s influence behind the unlikely union of Matteo Salvini’s Lega and Luigi Di Maio’s Five Star Movement (M5S). Bannon would have none of it. Although he admitted to having spoken with both gentlemen and having had prior contact with the M5S, he insisted that the two groups came together because sharing the government between them was ‘the logical conclusion’. The two parties’ leaders were ‘heroes’ for having ‘overcome the concepts of left and right’. That was the only way to meet the demands of an electorate, the majority of which voted ‘against the establishment’. ‘Italians should be proud.’ Now Rome is ‘the center of world politics’. The question now is whether the lessons from Italy’s experience are at all in line with what Bannon expects.

The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU) creates new opportunities for Europeans to unite around a common vision. The British played an important role in Europe both as a common market and as a political union. The challenge for the remaining member states will be to adapt to Great Britain’s absence. Last autumn, French President Emmanuel Macron launched an ambitious raft of proposals for reenergizing the European project. More recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel forged a grand-coalition government with a different pro-European agenda. Macron’s vision is more centralist and involves more institutionalized solidarity; Merkel’s vision is more intergovernmental and places more emphasis on political responsibility at the national level. The success of either approach will depend upon how other European member states respond to the call for unity. The next Italian government will play a critical role.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to have an exchange of emails with one of Italy’s leading financial journalists. This is part of a longer conversation we have been having over the past few years about the state of European financial markets and the role of Italy within them. The difference this time is that he published the exchange in gli Stati Generali, which is a project created to allow journalists to share stories or rely on formats that might not otherwise find their way into traditional media outlets. Knowing the journalist, the Italian version of our exchange is much more articulate than the English-language original I am reproducing here. The questions are in bold; my responses are in regular text.

When Italy’s voters went to the polls on 4 March, roughly 32.5 percent voted for the Five Star Movement (M5S) and another 17.5 percent voted for the Lega. If we add in the 4.5 percent who voted for the Brothers of Italy, well more than half of the electorate supported openly Euroskeptical movements whose leaders have flirted with the idea of leaving the euro. ‘Europe’ did not play a prominent role in the public debate during the run-up to the elections; according to pre-election polling done by SWG – one of the major national public opinion polling firms – cutting taxes and throwing out the ‘ruling class’ were more important. But the two big winners from the contest strongly advocated policies like rolling back pension reforms (Lega) or introducing a basic minimum income (M5S) that would quickly bring Italy into conflict with the European Commission over fiscal consolidation. Moreover, any future Italian government will have to draw support from one or both of these parliamentary groups. The question is what this means for relations between Italy and Europe.